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Life & Times Transcript
5/3/07 Coverage of Town Hall Los Angeles speakers on Life and Times is made possible by a grant from the Boeing Company. Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times -- Those sub-prime loans sure sounded good, but what happens when homeowners can't keep up with the payments? Malala Elston>> On the one hand, I feel sad about it. I'm panicked at the idea of having to leave, of having to pack up my things, my children, and move, find a place, rent a place. How am I going to rent a place when my credit is destroyed? Val Zavala>> And then, it's a sweet movie, but will "Waitress" leave our critics hungry for more? It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times. Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Val Zavala>> Experts said it would happen and now it has. Home foreclosures are up a hundred seventy percent in California compared to last year and one in five foreclosures nationwide is on a home in California. But behind the statistics are families who are going through heartbreak and hardship when they thought they had a piece of the American dream. Sam Louie has our story. Sam Louie>> Malala Elston is a first-time homeowner. She bought her small, three-bedroom house in Whittier in 2004. Malala Elston>> When I first bought the house, I was so excited. I mean, I was finally there. You know, I didn't really feel like a grownup, I don't think, until I bought the house. Sam Louie>> This single mother of three was glad to leave renting behind. Malala Elston>> It was costing me I think seventeen hundred dollars a month to rent that house and it seemed like that was just an enormous amount of money just to be throwing out the window. Sam Louie>> But Malala did not qualify for a traditional loan. Like thousands of other homebuyers, she turned to a brokerage firm that offered her a mortgage with no money down, a sub-prime loan, as they're called. Malala Elston>> And I really couldn't afford a twenty-five hundred dollar a month mortgage, but they said, "Well, you know what? You just have to get into the house and, once you're in there, you know, you just have to be able to afford the payments for a few months, two or three months. You can even refinance as soon as three months after you're in the house. We can lower your payments." Sam Louie>> But the promises of lower payments never materialized. After making the first few monthly payments and refinancing, interest rates were not any lower. Malala Elston>> It would just fluctuate even on a monthly basis. One month, it might be nine and a half; the next month, it might be eleven; the next month, it might be four. It would have just done that for the next thirty years if I had kept it. Sam Louie>> Life became a financial shell game. She took out a second loan on her house, going deeper into debt. Eventually, it caught up with her. Malala Elston>> I wasn't able to make up that money that I spent on Christmas and my financial situation began to spiral again. By January, I hadn't made the payments and they sent the house into default. Sam Louie>> Malala's house will soon go into foreclosure, but she isn't alone. Nearly forty-seven thousand other Californians received default notices in the first quarter of this year. Malala Elston>> Well, I'm sad. I mean, I put a lot of work into this house. It's cost me a lot of money. On the one hand, I feel sad about it. I'm panicked at the idea of having to leave, of having to pack up my things, my children, and move, find a place, rent a place. How am I going to rent a place when my credit is destroyed? Sam Louie>> For help, Malala contacted the Montebello Housing Development Corporation. Margarita Masferrer is a loan counselor with the nonprofit agency. She sympathizes with Malala. Margarita Masferrer>> She went to a realtor who said, "Well, don't worry. We'll get you into your house by any means possible. We'll get you into your house." She knew herself that this was a big risk because her income would barely cover the mortgage payment, but she felt that, well, I'm ready and, hopefully in the future, there will be an increase in income and I can do it. Sam Louie>> Her news for Malala is not good. She will likely lose her home. Margarita Masferrer>> It makes me angry. It makes me very frustrated and very sad. Sam Louie>> Margarita says they usually help people become homeowners, but lately she's seen a shift. Margarita Masferrer>> People were first coming in, you know, just for assistance to be home buyers. Now I'm a homeowner. What can I do to keep my house because I'm in peril? Sam Louie>> Compared to a year ago, the number of mortgage foreclosures in California has soared eight hundred percent, the highest in nearly a decade. Margarita blames it on predatory lending, adjustable rate loans made to people who really can't afford the payments. Margarita Masferrer>> They're just told, "Don't worry, don't worry. We'll get you into the house." They got into the house not knowing what they signed, not knowing what the terms and conditions were and now, with the rates adjusting, they have no way of compensating for that difference. Sam Louie>> Margarita says she not against adjustable rate mortgage or sub-prime loans, but borrowers must understand how to make them work in their favor. Homeowners have to improve their credit score and save more if they want a chance to switch to a lower fixed rate mortgage. Margarita Masferrer>> Everything has to be in the right place in order for it to be of benefit to you. You know, you can't just get into the home and, in two years, lower your payments. That's what many people are thinking. Sam Louie>> Foreclosures are especially high among certain minorities who Margarita feels have been targeted by predatory lenders. Margarita Masferrer>> Right now, the foreclosure rates just within the African American community have jumped up to fifty-two percent. Within the Latino community, it has jumped up to forty-two percent. Ted Grose>> A responsible lender, a responsible broker, a responsible originator, will not do that. Sam Louie>> Ted Grose is with the California Association of Mortgage Brokers. He defends non-traditional loans saying that, at the time, would-be homeowners were hungry for products that would get them into a home. Ted Grose>> What's forgotten, by and large, about those alternative loan products, if they are viewed as alternative loan products, is that there are a significant number of consumers who are in homes now that otherwise would not have been able to get into homes at all. Sam Louie>> And he believes the loans are color-blind and don't discriminate by race. Ted Grose>> If the product itself doesn't target any specific demographic, any income level, any credit trench, the product itself does not do that. Sam Louie>> Grose says that he will reject clients who are over-extended, but he admits that not everyone is as scrupulous. Ted Grose>> Do we need better enforcement of existing laws on business practice? You bet. Sam Louie>> California ranks third in the nation for the highest rate of foreclosures right behind Nevada and Colorado. So could bad news for some homeowners be good news for house hunters? Will the rising number of foreclosures lower home prices? Ted Grose>> There is no evidence at the moment that the numbers of foreclosures are going to be significant enough to depress prices to the point that affordability will increase. Sam Louie>> And yet, in southern California, more than six thousand homes are on the auction block and the number of homes on the market is rising. It now takes more than twice as long to sell a house than it did two years ago. Malala Elston>> "You're too young to be kissing. Don't do it. And besides that, you know what? If you do that, your lips are going to fall off." Sam Louie>> Back in Whittier, Malala says she's angry with her broker. Malala Elston>> I wrote them a letter and told them, "You guys were not honest with me and I can't prove it because I signed the documents and I can't prove what was said to me and that's true. But you wholly misled me." Sam Louie>> She has vowed not to be so naïve next time and she's trying to stay positive. Malala Elston>> I'm in a good place in lots of other ways in my life and I can't afford to invest all of my optimism and everything into this one thing that went wrong. Sam Louie>> In the meantime, Malala has replaced her dream of home ownership with something even better. Malala Elston>> Financial independence, not having debt, being able to provide for the people that I need to provide for, and living the life that I want to live. That's more important to me now than owning a home. Sam Louie>> I'm Sam Louie for Life and Times. Val Zavala>> So what do you think? We'd love to know your response to that story and you can post it on our blog. Just go to kcet.org and click on the Life and Times Blog. Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times". Val Zavala>> Do you have to be Christian to rise up the ranks in the military in America? Well, according to the author of one book, you do, especially at the Air Force Academy. Michael Weinstein is an Air Force Academy graduate and attorney. He's written a book, "With God On Our Side: One Man's War Against an Evangelical Coups in America's Military". He says the pressure on cadets to accept fundamentalist christianity is intense and military superiors are cooperating. To fight the practice, he has started the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. I met Weinstein when he was a guest at Town Hall Los Angeles. Now what kind of experiences convinced you that you needed something like Military Religious Freedom Foundation? Why do their rights need protecting? What happened? Michael Weinstein>> Well, I have to thank Mel Gibson. When his movie came out in February of 2004, I think the name of it was the "Jesus Chainsaw Massacre" or "Freddy versus Jesus". I forget the exact name. It may have been "The Passion of the Christ". I had three children at the Academy at the time, one of them Christian, two of them Jewish, and I was stunned to find out that the Academy almost corporately was pressuring all forty-two hundred cadets and the other six thousand staffers there to go see this thing. I was stunned at the extent of it. I thought for sure that this was a mistake and somebody was being over-zealous. So for a few months, you know, I tried to go to the senior people there and say, "I think there's something wrong", right? I figured it would be taken care of, and a few months later, one of my children reported to me that he was being called an F..ing Jew and being accused of total complicity in the execution of Jesus Christ and that kind of got my attention. Val Zavala>> This is at the Air Force Academy in Colorado, correct? Michael Weinstein>> There's only one. Val Zavala>> There's only one. Michael Weinstein>> The United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Val Zavala>> What other experiences, perhaps your own experience or your son's experience, did you have to convince you that you needed to act? Michael Weinstein>> Well, both of my sons had reported this. My daughter-in-law is a Christian. I was told that she was pressured by a general to go out and harvest non-Christian cadets to bring them to Ted Haggard who recently had a sudden career change at his New Life Church in Colorado Springs. For instance, the most popular joke at the Air Force Academy in 2004 and early 2005 was "Why do Jews make the best magicians?" You know that one? Val Zavala>> No. Michael Weinstein>> Apparently Jews make the best magicians "because they have the magical ability to walk into a red brick building and come out the smokestacks in a puff of smoke." Val Zavala>> Oh. Michael Weinstein>> The stories were legion. I mean, brown bag lunches being held by senior officers during the day with leafleted pamphlets going out, flyers saying, "Do not take this flyer down. This is an officially sponsored United States Air Force Academy activity. Today's luncheon topic: "Why we cannot let you have your God while we have ours". Val Zavala>> You also write about something called the heathen flight that happens at the Academy. What is that? Michael Weinstein>> The upperclassmen were trying to determine which cadets would not accept this particular evangelical perspective. You're divided in the Air Force into wings, groups, squadrons and then flights. So it was called heathen flight. You were a heathen unless you accepted one particular biblical world view. Sometimes you would have to stand in a hot tent by yourself staring at the ground rather than go to the worship services. If you went to worship services, you were generally given a Coke and you were praised. At the end of the worship service, we had an instance where the reigning Air Force Chaplain of the year at that time over the bullhorn told hundreds of entering freshmen called basic cadets that -- he ordered them to leave his outdoor worship service and pointed to the tents where I guess the heathens were, the ones that didn't want to come to the service. He ordered them to go confront their classmates, get in their faces immediately upon leaving this particular fire and brimstone service and demand to know their religious faiths. If they weren't evangelical Christians, they were ordered to evangelize their classmates on the spot and, if their classmates refused, they were to be told that the penalty for this hypocrisy would be that they would burn eternally in the fires of Hell. Val Zavala>> Now how do you know that this pressure is coming from within the academy, not from outside churches which may be around the area or private groups or whatever? Michael Weinstein>> Well, it is. I mean, Colorado Springs is kind of called the Protestant Vatican. Over one hundred of this nation's largest and most strident evangelical organizations, for some reason like moths to a flame, are attracted there. They're called para-church organizations. They've been given unbelievable access to the cadet wing, which is the student body. But, of course, we've had over four thousand members of the United States military in forty months that have come to us that are tormentees. The real shocker is that ninety-six percent of them are Christian. It's basically this small substantive evangelical christianity called dominionist christianity praying and preying on non-evangelical Christians telling them, "You know what? You may think you're a Christian. You're not Christian enough and, as a result, you're going to burn eternally in the fires of Hell along with the Jews." Val Zavala>> But how do they have that kind of power at the Academy? I mean, isn't someone shutting them down and saying, "Come on, you guys. You're in a minority. Just cool it." Michael Weinstein>> Let me make it clear. It's way beyond the Academy. We found a liver spot on the lung. It's throughout the entire Department of Defense. Let me tell you something. Where was America? Where were the viewers of this program on Tuesday, July 12, 2005 on the front page of the newspaper most reviled by the Pentagon, and that newspaper would be The New York Times? The number two ranking general among the thousands and the Chaplain's Corps in the United States Air Force, Brigadier General Cecil R. Richardson, made the amazing statement that it was now the United States Air Force's policy to reserve its right to evangelize anyone that it determines to be un-churched. My wife and I raised our hands and said, "Excuse me, Air Force. We have three kids in the Air Force, two of them Academy graduates, one still at the Academy. We now demand to know if our children fall on this Richard Nixon era enemy's list of being un-churched and, if so, we demand to know if you are or are not going to exercise your reserve right to evangelize them?" If we just go to the body of the Constitution itself, Clause 3, Article 6 states that we're never going to have a religion test for any position in the federal government, except I guess the Air Force that is going to have a religious Geiger counter and, if you're un-churched, they may evangelize you. We sued them. We formed the Foundation and now we're going to lay down a withering field of fire, kick ass and take names and leave sucking chest wounds to prevent this unconstitutional heart of darkness from taking over our beautiful country. Val Zavala>> Some people would hear the language you're using and say, "Oh, my God. This guy is, you know, exaggerating and over the top." They're just going to put you in the category of being kind of a wacko. So how do you defend your credibility? Michael Weinstein>> I'm a registered Republican. I spent over three years as one of President Reagan's lawyers in the White House. I was H. Ross Perot's general counsel. My family has three consecutive generations of military academy graduates in it, including myself. We have over a hundred twenty years of combined active duty military service in pretty much every major combat engagement this country has been in, Val, from the First World War to the current so-called global war on terror. So I think we've earned our stripes. This kind of behavior would last three seconds in the private sector, but in the United States military, it's a trillion times worse. It's a different culture. Adultery is routinely punished as a felony in the military. If your superior tells you to go to the base dentist at four p.m. and you don't go, it's a felony. You know, that is not just your shift manager. It's your military superior and, in this situation, it takes an awful lot to stand up even if you're being gently evangelized by your military superior. "Get out of my face, Sir" is not an option for you. Val Zavala>> Strong words. It will be very interesting to follow your fight here. Thank you very much, Michael Weinstein. Michael Weinstein>> Thank you. Val Zavala>> Michael Weinstein was a guest of Town Hall Los Angeles. For information on membership and future speakers, you can go to their website at townhall-la.org. Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week is the anticipated blockbuster, "Spider-Man 3", which returns Kirsten Dunst and, of course, Tobey Maguire as Spiderman. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Henry Sheehan of henrysheehan.com and Peter Rainer of the Christian Science Monitor. Peter, what did you think of "Spider-man 3"? Peter Rainer>> Well, this is really a movie that should be reviewed more, I think, by the business writer than the movie critic at this point (laughter). It's the third of the franchise and I think probably the least of them. I wasn't that crazy about the first and the second I thought was pretty terrific. But this one suffers from villain gridlock. There are too many villains and, with the exception of Thomas Haden Church's Sandman, I thought none of them were terribly interesting. His character, however, is visually very arresting and terrific and I wish the movie had been called "Sandman" instead of "Spider-Man" (laughter). Tobey Maguire, you know, I understand that the ordinary guyness of his persona is integral to the role, but it carries it too far. The meekness thing just gets out of hand. His going over to the dark side, I think, is at best a gray side. Overall, it just really didn't work for me. Larry Mantle>> All right. Henry? Henry Sheehan>> Yes, when he goes over to the dark side, what mainly happens is that he gets really rude to people and that's about it. You know, you get to the second sequel, the third episode, and clearly Sam Raimi, the director, and his crew have really run out of things to say or do. So what they do is they loot the two earlier pictures to bring up some themes and dramatic motifs and rework those, but they've already been, you know, played out. Then they load up and load up and load up the special effects. To me, there's a definite point of diminishing returns for those. I think this is a movie that's subtraction by addition. Larry Mantle>> Next up is the latest film from director Curtis Hanson. "Lucky You" takes us into the world of professional gambling and it stars Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Well, Curtis Hanson is typically a critic's favorite. What did you think of his latest endeavor, "Lucky You", Henry? Henry Sheehan>> Well, maybe it's because he set his own bar so high, but I thought this film was a major disappointment. Eric Bana plays a professional poker player in Las Vegas who falls for Drew Barrymore who is unbelievably straight-laced. The problem with the movie is the most fundamental one. It's that Hanson can't persuade us that poker is an interesting or compelling dramatic forum and the characters end up so extremely drawn to provoke some interest in the drama that they become unbelievable in the whole thing. Unlikely for Hanson, there are some good sequences here and there in the first half hour, but this is a movie that rises to plainly nothing at all. Larry Mantle>> Oh, that's too bad. Peter? Peter Rainer>> Yeah, Curtis Hanson is a wonderful director. Larry Mantle>> Yes. Peter Rainer>> He's made two of my favorite movies, "L.A. Confidential" and "Wonder Boys". The problem with this movie, I think, is that it so over-emphasizes the poker as metaphor for life thing that it overtakes the movie, so the characters seem like stand-ins for some sort of, you know, existential playing out of life. You know, they keep mentioning that Eric Bana's character plays poker the way he should play life and lives his life the way he should play poker and so forth. The point keeps getting reiterated, you know, and after a while, you feel like, well, okay, but where's the person in all of this? He walks around in a leather jacket for all of the movie and he's an arresting image, but as a person, there's something lacking there. Drew Barrymore's character, again, is so peachy keen that she seems to have been, you know, dropped down from the clouds to cleanse his soul. It's all very metaphorical in all the wrong ways. Larry Mantle>> Our third film this week is directed by an actress, Sarah Polley, and the film, "Away From Her" stars Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent in the tale of a couple getting later into their life and Alzheimer's is looming. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> "Away From Her", Henry? Henry Sheehan>> Yes, this is the directorial debut of the fine actress, Sarah Polley, and I have to say that, simply as a piece of moviemaking, it's really a failure. It's based on an Alice Monroe story. There's a lot of problems with focus. I mean, dramatic focus. But there's also a lot of problems with literal focus in that Polley can't seem to think of any way to film her scenes except in matching close-ups which are in a very shallow focal length which, aside from keeping the characters apart and keeping them from manufacturing a dynamic with each other, reduces the environment they live in. So we don't always get a feel for what's going on in a larger sense of the environment. I suppose Julie Christie gives a good performance. I don't know how talented you have to be to do someone slipping into Alzheimer's. It's good, it's effective, but nowhere near good enough to make the movie worth seeing. Larry Mantle>> And finally, the film "Waitress" which stars Keri Russell and Jeremy Sisto. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> "Waitress", Peter? Peter Rainer>> This is a very charming movie. It's a melancholy comedy directed by Adrienne Shelly, the late Adrienne Shelly who also wrote it and co-stars in it. Keri Russell plays a small-town waitress in a southern town who bakes a special pie every day that she gives a name to, you know, like "I hate my husband" pie. It's a terrific little movie with a very interesting visual style, kind of abstracted and almost cartoonish, but the characters in it have real human depth, I think. Andy Griffith has a wonderful cameo as sort of the town codger. Cheryl Hines, Jeremy Sisto, it's a wonderful cast. It really, I think, overall is a bit like a Hal Hartley movie. Shelly appeared in a number of Hartley pictures. But I like it more than the Hartley movies because I think there's more human weight to it. Larry Mantle>> Well, thanks for joining us for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC joined by critics Henry Sheehan of henrysheehan.com and Peter Rainer of the Christian Science Monitor. Please join us again next week for the next FilmWeek on Life and Times. Val Zavala>> KPCC broadcasts the longer version of FilmWeek on Fridays at eleven a.m. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time. Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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